


The Good Side

by EvieSmallwood



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Minor Joyce Byers/Jim "Chief" Hopper, but i promise, this is NOT a mileven breakup I know what the summary looks like, wheeler family drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 18:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13416846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvieSmallwood/pseuds/EvieSmallwood
Summary: El takes a deep breath, absorbing the scent of pine, rain, detergent and sweat. Her hand curls around his sweater. “We don’t end,” she says, firmly. “Not us.”This, to El, is a certainty. Her love for Mike isn’t a thing she ever questions. As soon as she’d understood the word with its multi-faceted meanings, she’d known that was what she felt. There’s never any wavering in that. She loves Mike. The sky is blue. A fall from the quarry into the water can shatter your bones. Will is her brother. Eyes are for seeing, ears are for hearing.





	The Good Side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [punkcurly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkcurly/gifts), [anomalation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomalation/gifts).



She knows the way he grew up; floral patterned wallpaper and a new family portrait every autumn. Dinners home cooked and on the table by six-o-clock sharp, family vacations to Maine where their grandparents owned a cottage, and a ridiculously generous allowance.

It wasn’t extravagant, exactly, but it was better.

Better than four white walls and a creaky metal bed. Better than a package of crayons on her ninth birthday that got revoked the minute the clock struck midnight. Better than scratchy sheets and wires on a shaved head of hair.

He’d had his struggles. His life wasn’t perfect and it still isn’t; as is evident the Saturday night she comes over, house smelling of freshly baked goods, to a backdrop of shouting and crying. The source of the latter noise is Holly, mostly—but every once in a while Mrs. Wheeler’s voice breaks with a sharp sob.

It makes El’s heart snap in two. She can see the pain etched across Mike’s face as plain as blood is on snow. It stands out no matter how hard he tries to hide it—directing her down into the basement and putting on a movie with his baby sister snuggled into his lap, still sniffling. El holds her hand and halfway through their third viewing of _Snow White_ (Holly’s favourite), she’s braiding the little girl’s hair just the way Nancy taught her to when she was about fourteen.

It’s as though the roles have been reversed for them. She’d had a shitty childhood—there was no way to put it other than that, really—and now, as time passed and the cracks of her heart that had been so agonisingly created during those years of torture were filled—things were getting better. She was happy, most days. Halfway happy, at least.

With Mike, he isn’t used to things being so turbulent. Various times during those 353 days, at least at the start, he’d complained about how boring it was ( _here, without you_ ). His parents did the same things every day, nothing new or exciting ever happened. That was how he’d thought things would stay until she’d come along.

And so she does her best to help him through it, even though she’s never really been good at that stuff. Learning, sure. According to Hopper, she “absorbs information like a sponge”. It doesn’t mean she’s good at vocalising, but observation and empathy have always been her strong suits. Consolation, expression... weak points. Room for improvement.

Mike is easy consoled, though; because he never seeks after any. He bottles everything up for days or weeks or even months and then blows up when the waters of his rage boil over. It usually ends in him kicking intimate objects and messing up his already too-messy hair. She doesn’t mind, though. She sits, and waits for him to join her, so she can rest her head on his shoulder. That’s about as far as things ever go.

Until now.

It’s night—way past one, or so; El can hear the sounds of the television still thrumming with noise. A sports channel, maybe, or a soap. Accompanied by this soothing background is Hopper’s snoring, which is erratic and throaty and probably at least slightly painful.

El is on her back, staring at her ceiling. She can’t sleep. She can _feel_ an unease in the air; it’s been with her all day, since she woke up.

It’s not a normal thing. As a matter of fact, it’s the first time she’s really felt this way—at least, the way she feels it. It’s sort of like it’s buried underneath all of her other feelings; a faint echo that shouldn’t belong but does.

Thunder claps. She’s not afraid of the sound anymore—there had been plenty of rainy, thunder-ridden storms out in the woods that winter, when she’d had nothing but a pathetic ensemble of twigs to keep her safe. She can still remember the constant fear which had eventually melted away into familiarity. Thunder didn’t scare her, and neither did the forest.

The feeling suddenly makes sense when El rolls over onto her side, just as something taps on her window. She doesn’t need to see, really, to know that it’s him (sure, it’s not an absolute certainty, but _who else?_ )

El stumbles through the darkness, groggily wiping her eye and pushing her hair from where it’s stuck to her forehead. She can hardly see him through the sheet of water against her window—tall, she can make out. Dark.

Another tap. It must be a rock, or a pebble. El thinks fast, lunging for a towel to lay in front of the window and then cracking it.

Water pools before diverting, spreading, and dripping onto the towel. It’s definitely Mike, which prompts her to raise the pane as far as she can before it inevitably gets jammed in the same spot as always. With a quick twitch of her head it slides up the rest of the way.

His hands are the first things she makes contact with. They’re cold (stone cold), and pale. She takes them without hesitation, ducking her head out because she just doesn’t _care_. Not when he looks like that.

His cheeks are red, and so is his nose. He’s so soaked it could be comical had it been caused by something else—something that isn’t freezing sheets of wind and water. His hair is plastered to his brow and his eyes are fucking broken.

“Mike—”

“C-can I c-come in? F-for a second?”

She nods, and backs away to make room for him. He clambers up the wall—white and picturesque just like every other house on the street—using the subtly (not so subtly, if Hopper were asked) placed cinderblock for leverage.

His foot ends up slipping on her dresser (a squeak of a sneaker, sharp gasps from them both), and he almost falls with a ridiculous thud before she rights him with an outstretched hand; instinct still to use her mind over physical matter.

Mike steadies himself, sliding gently down, eyes never leaving her face. His teeth are chattering but his jaw is clenched so tightly it’s barely noticeable.

She notices, though; she also notices the way his hands start to shake and all of the sudden he’s just _shivering_ , dripping all over the middle of her bedroom looking scared and sad and tiny. 

El blinks. Then before she knows it she’s rushing forward and stripping off his wet things—backpack, rain jacket, sweatshirt—in a slightly feverish manner. He’s compliant, though. They don’t speak. He’s so cold _inside_ what comes out of his mouth his still white and foggy.

She snatches up another towel (this one clean; she’d planned on using it tomorrow morning) and starts drying his hair. His hands fall to her waist while she works.

Then all of the sudden he’s crying. Deep, gut-wrenching sobs from nowhere (or a somewhere she hasn’t been made aware of yet); tears fall and he seems to curl into himself a little.

“Shh,” is the first thing that comes out of her mouth, in what she hopes is a comforting manner—though in reality her anxiety momentarily trumps all else, and she glances at the door. The lock flips, and a throw blanket is dragged across the floor by an invisible force and stuffed beneath the crack. It’s not the _best_ , but with the TV it’ll do.

He falls into her, then, when the tension leaves her shoulders. He keeps crying blindly. Her vision eventually grows blurry. She shakes her arm around his neck and puts the other around his waist, burying her face in his neck. She can feel his veins jumping out through his skin with the ice in his bones.

Mike starts hiccuping after a minute. He’s fighting for control over his emotions—trying to stuff the cork back into a too-small opening. He draws away and stares at her ceiling but his tears fall anyway; crystalline in the moonlight, stemming from sheer heartbreak.

“What happened?”

Mike frowns in an _I-might-vomit-but-it’ll-pass_ sort of way. “They’re getting divorced.”

 _Oh_.

Without another word she leads him to her bed, forcing him to lay down against her paisley patterned sheets. They’re from Joyce, who’s working a double tonight and probably won’t be home until two.

El lays the quilt on top of him and then shuffles around to the other side, climbing onto the mattress but staying above the covers. She grabs another throw and pulls it over herself, and then reaches out to take his hand.

Their fingers lace together. It’s how it works. Their hand holding is all intimate and their kisses are either chaste or deep, and their love somehow transcends the god-damned heavens (in the paraphrased words of the sappiest poem ever written, courtesy of a fifteen-year-old Mike).

“You should sleep,” she tells him, her other hand reaching out to push his still wet hair from his face. “It’s late.”

“He broke her favourite China set.” It comes tumbling out of his mouth, low and raspy. His eyes are rimmed with red. “Just shattered it everywhere. She was crying and crawling on the floor, like she could put the pieces back together or something—and she can’t. She keeps trying, but she can’t. Nothing can fix something so broken, y’know?” _Glue, tape, ultimatums, bullshit lies._ “And he just kept yelling at her. I’ve never seen him so—“ he sucks in a breath. They’re both thinking _alive_. “Angry.”

El’s chin wobbles. It’s stupid, maybe, but all she wants to do is sob at the thought of him and Holly in that house while their lives fell apart. She squeezes his hand, hard, and composes herself. “H-Holly?”

“Neighbour’s,” he replies. “Mom went to bed. Dad’s just... gone.”

Gone. It may have a different meaning, this time around—not nearly as significant as Barb, but infinitely more pertinent than the time Max’s favourite pair of shoes were ‘just gone’. It’s somehow on par with Mama. Who knows if they’ll ever be seen again.

“It’ll be okay,” she whispers, trying her best to keep her voice from shaking.

He looks small. He looks the way he had when they’d been twelve and her face had been mooned by the beam of a flashlight. He looks like he’s missing something important but no matter how hard he tries he can’t get it back, or find it.

Curled up, staring at their hands, a tear on his cheek.

There’s so much worry rolling off of him; _we could lose the house_ , is one thing. It’s come up before when the topic of his parents’ potential split has surfaced, which has always seemed more like a far off fantasy than the horrifying reality it really is. Another is, _what happens to mom._ Then, _I have to tell Nancy._

None of that comes out, though.

It’s: “I love you.”

El doesn’t wait before pressing her lips to his. They’re very warm—he’s warming up, which is good—but salty from crying. She doesn’t mind. She rakes her fingers through his hair and doesn’t mind when her hand comes away dampened and clammy. It’s okay. It’s okay, because he’s here and they’re kissing and he loves her.

He breaks away roughly, pupils blown, eyes never leaving her face. “I’ll never do that to you. I swear to god. If I ever hurt you, you can like, kill me. I don’t care. I’d rather be dead, I think.”

El can’t help the startled laugh that escapes her. “I’m not gonna kill you.”

“You sure? I’d probably deserve it. How dare I ever even, god I’m a bastard.”

He’s grinning, which is good. She can tell he’s just trying to bury it, though. Bury this issue like the body of someone who’s died. _It’s done, it’s over_ —that’s the Mike Wheeler mentality. _You can’t fix it, you can only make the present good and the future better._

“Mike,” she sighs, leaning back to her own side of the bed, but keeping her hand on his chest. “You don’t hurt people.”

“Yes I do,” he says, a rush of fear and honestly—like he’s pulling back the proverbial curtain, though to her it’s been transparent this whole time. There’s nothing he could say, or do, really. “We fight... a lot. Already. What if...”

She closes her eyes, but it’s only to blink back more wetness. She scoots closer to him again, relishing in the heat his body gives off. “No,” she says, and then feels his desperate need for her to explain further. It’s like a light pulse in the back of her mind, sometimes; this understanding of what he needs when it comes to all sorts of things, not just communication; water, food, warmth, a hug. She can tell when his mood dips or rises; a tug in her stomach even from miles away.

Hopper had called that empathy, but she knew it was more—a communion of sorts, like their minds were linked by an invisible tether, and she got whatever signal he was unconsciously sending out.

El takes a deep breath, absorbing the scent of pine, rain, detergent and sweat. Her hand curls around his sweater. “We don’t end,” she says, firmly. “Not us.”

This, to El, is a certainty. Her love for Mike isn’t a thing she ever questions. As soon as she’d understood the word with its multi-faceted meanings, she’d known _that_ was what she felt. There’s never any wavering in that. She loves Mike. The sky is blue. A fall from the quarry into the water can shatter your bones. Will is her brother. Eyes are for seeing, ears are for hearing.

Mike wraps his arm around her waist. His lips brush her cheek and _shit_ , it gives her goosebumps.

“Sleep,” she says, managing to tuck an arm under his sweater so she can feel his heartbeat practically against her palm. He gives a small shiver but she knows it’s not from any chill, and it makes her smile.

In the morning, they’ll deal with it. They’ll go for coffee, pick up Holly, and call Nancy at NYU, and face the fact that everyone has problems no matter how old. For now, she wants nothing more than to stay in this bed forever with him, on her good side, knowing that she’ll always fit against him like this.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is inspired by Troye Sivan’s newest song, The Good Side, which I absolutely can’t get enough of. I’m dedicating this to my friends Charlotte and Anna because I know they love him too and IF YOU HAVEN’T HEARD IT YET, LADIES: L I S T E N. 
> 
> Another song to listen to if you ever re-read this would be Jorge Regula by The Moldy Peaches, or Anyone Else But You. Both are fantastic soft songs. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed :)


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